After 26 years, Delhi octogenarian gets divorce

JM Kohli, 85, battling brain haemorrhage, today is a relieved man as after an arduous legal battle of 26 years, on Thursday was finally granted divorce from his wife Vimla by the Delhi high court.

Justice Kailash Gambhir while granting divorce said, “this is an unfortunate case where the parties have spent more than half of their lives in courts.

Marriage is a union where husband and wife spend their life building a bond of trust, love and friendship which would be their support during the last years of their lives. Having the spouse by the side at the fag end, is an asset which clearly the parties were devoid of.”

Court also expressed concern over the grueling legal battle and said, “the years which should have been spent by the parties to start with a clean slate have been spent with in court rooms. When parties approach the portals of law for dissolving their matrimony, it should be the endeavour of the courts to expeditiously decide these matters.”

Kohli and Vimla, who got married in 1953, filed for a divorce in 1982 and got it in 1994.  However, Vimla, challenged the same in the high court alleging she was not heard in the trial court.

Kohli’s advocate Geeta Luthra said, “Kohli, who worked with the Central Public Works Department, was befooled by Vimla and her relatives. In 1979, when Vimla’s brother got a DDA flat in Munirka, she asked Kohli to make the payment and moved in with her 25-year-old daughter. A few months later, Vimla and her daughter forced Kohli to leave the house.

Vimla later filed a property declaration suit against Kohli, which he challenged in the Delhi high court. Vimla moved the high court in 2003 challenging the trial court’s divorce verdict, which ruled in Kohli’s favour.